"We didn't read the country's reality properly," said Jordi Sànchez. "We overestimated our own strengths or were very naive," Carme Forcadell reiterated. Former presidents of the ANC, after a long silence, have spoken out again in a conversation at the ARAA lucid diagnosis that brings us to the point we almost always reach after a failure: we deluded ourselves into believing we were ready to take the final step before its time. An adventure that mobilized the main pro-independence parties and personalities and attracted people from diverse backgrounds, even incorporating into Junts pel Sí figures who had built their profiles against Pujolism.

Two former presidents of the ANC, Carme Forcadell and Jordi Sánchez, speak to ARA during the week of the Diada to reflect on the evolution of the country and the independence movement in recent years. During the conversation, they analyze why they believe that, eight years after 1-O, the pro-independence parties have lost their absolute majority in the Parliament and that the president, Salvador Illa, is in power. They also offer self-criticism when they have had responsibilities.

Months ago – in some cases years – the research group Citizen Lab, from the University of Toronto, contacted dozens of individuals linked to the Independence bid to see if they could analyse their mobile phones. They wanted to check whether they had been victims of Pegasus, a virus devised by Israeli company NSO only sold to states which could be used to access all information on a cell phone can be obtained without the affected party knowing about it. The results came back positive: their phones had been infected, yet they had all been acting as if they were being spied on for some time. As many as nine victims explained their experience to ARA.

One of the first things the JxCat prisoners said they would do when they were free was to go to Waterloo to visit former president Carles Puigdemont. After more than three years in prison, once pardoned, they have done so: this Friday ex Catalan ministers Jordi Turull, Josep Rull, Joaquim Forn and Jordi Sànchez have travelled to Belgium to meet again with Puigdemont. It was the first time they had left the country since 2017.

"I respected the decision of my party, despite it being deeply unfair. That now I have lifted the suspension of membership is a first step towards my public rehabilitation". This is how the former JxCat spokesman in Parliament Eduard Pujol expressed himself in a statement made public early Tuesday morning, reaffirming his "innocence" after the party has apologized to him and decided to amend it. "I will restore my honor", he promises.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is, now that the judicial route in the State is running out, the destination of the appeals against the sentence of the Catalan independence bid issued a year and eight months ago, on October 14, 2019. But not only the condemned pro-independence leaders and their legal defenses have their eyes set on Strasbourg. Also the magistrates of the Constitutional Court.

The article by Oriol Junqueras published yesterday in the ARA in which he endorsed the pardons and questioned the unilateral path has opened an intense debate within the pro-independence movement. Not only the CUP has replied to the leader of Esquerra that "one cannot renounce" disobeying the state, but the secretary general of Junts, Jordi Sànchez, has also amended Junqueras' approach in an article published this Tuesday in the ARA. He responds with three ideas: that Junqueras' letter is a "tutelage" of the president, Pere Aragonès, because it limits his "capacity for action" - alluding to the possibility of undertaking unilateralism -; that the Catalan independence bid on 1 October was not a "mistake" nor an "illegitimate" act, and that the commitment to "negotiation and agreement" does not have to entail the "renunciation of other democratic and peaceful ways".

As already happened in the case of Jordi Turull and Josep Rull, the content of the two dissenting votes of the majority of the TC that has endorsed the sentence of the Supreme Court for sedition against Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart becomes the basis on which to build the appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). It is fair to say, moreover, that the appeal of Sànchez and Cuixart is the most likely to succeed, since they were social leaders at the time of the events (and Cuixart still is), without any political responsibility. Juan Antonio Xiol and María Luisa Balaguer go beyond pointing out that the sentences are "disproportionate" and warn: "They threaten to impoverish our democracy, to align us with societies disciplined by the abuse of the penal system in the repression of conduct that takes place in the material sphere of fundamental rights and to distance us from the need for a progressive interpretation and application of the rights that make possible the normal participation of citizens in full democracies." In other words, the sentence aligns Spain with authoritarian regimes (you name the countries, but it could be from Hungary to Russia, passing through Turkey), and distances it from the most advanced democracies within the European Union.

Jordi Sànchez (Barcelona, 1964) receives ARA in Lledoners prison with a face of satisfaction. In one week the legislature agreement of Junts with ERC has been unblocked and there is already a new president.

There is no doubt that, given the damage that a repeat election would have caused, the agreement announced on Monday between ERC and JxCat to form a coalition government is good news. However, neither of the two parties can be happy with how talks had gone until the decisive meetings of this weekend, and, in fact, both have apologised to the public. The fact is that at this stage of the negotiations, and seeing the parties' inability to come to an agreement, many people had switched off from politics and disaffection is growing. New elections would have been a coin toss with a very uncertain outcome.

Secretary general of JxCat, Jordi Sànchez, has maintained its will to reach a coalition agreement with Esquerra this Monday in an interview to Catalunya Ràdio and has summoned the vice-president, Pere Aragonès, to continue negotiating. According to Sànchez, ERC's sudden change is unprecendented but it is still possible to redress the situation. And he warned: "To hope for Pere Aragonès to be invested with the argument that in 83 days we have not reached an agreement is to put us at the foot of an abyss that can lead us to a self-provoked accident of new elections [...]. It is not reasonable to be invested with 33 seats and say that we will reach an agreement later".

The secretary general of Junts per Catalunya, Jordi Sànchez, has responded this Saturday to ERC's announcement to explore the path of the solitary government by offering an extended hand to continue negotiating a coalition government. Without concealing his surprise at the appearance of the vice-president of the Govern and national coordinator of the Republicans, Pere Aragonès, Sànchez has assured that his formation will continue working to reach an agreement before the deadline of 26 May. "There are 18 days left, but our agreement is close. There are no excuses. It is not normal to give up the possibility of a strategic agreement", warned the leader of Junts, who has denied that his formation wants to impose "tutelage" on Aragonès.

Amnesty International continues to denounce that the secretary general of Junts and former leader of the Assemblea, Jordi Sànchez, and the president of Òmnium, Jordi Cuixart, are deprived of their freedom three years and five months after their imprisonment. This time the organisation has highlighted their situation in the annual report on human rights in the world. In the section on Spain, Amnesty warns that Sànchez and Cuixart "were still in prison" at the end of 2020 after being found guilty "of sedition in connection with the 2017 demonstrations and independence referendum." Without going into assessments, the organisation recalls the situation of the leaders of the sovereignist entities in the section that deals with freedom of expression and assembly in the Spanish state.

The Constitutional Court has again refused to suspend Jordi Sànchez, Jordi Turull, Josep Rull and Joaquim Forn's sentence, after they asked for it following the Belgian sentence on former Culture minister Lluís Puig. The four convicted in the trial on the Independence bid requested again from the high court that while their appeal for protection is resolved they should be se free. They argue that a Belgian court declining the extradition of Puig because he would not have a fair trial strengthens their position. The Consitutional Court, however, dismissed the appeal.

The secretary general of JxCat, Jordi Sànchez, attends the ARA in the morning without knowing yet if the judge of penitentiary surveillance will decide today if he suspends the open prison regime and makes him return to the Lledoners prison.

The day after the elections of 14 February has served to confirm the paradigm shift within the independence movement. Therefore, only 35,000 votes and 1 seat ahead of JxCat, ERC will aspire to lead the next government with JxCat as second in command. On Monday, ERC said as much to anybody who would listen and the latter have shown signs of accepting it. The starting point of the legislature begins with a point of agreement and a point of disagreement. In the field of coincidences, the two parties aspire to a quick negotiation to form a Government, a fact not minor if one takes into account that the last two investitures - that of Carles Puigdemont (2016) and that of Quim Torra (2018) - were delayed by more than three and four months. But they have also shown the first divergences. ERC wants En Comú - and also the CUP - to participate in the agreement for the investiture, while JxCat only wants to count with pro-independence forces and excludes En Comú. These are the first cards on the table for a negotiation that will begin imminently.